NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments • Hacker News Board

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#151

Post by Karunamon » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 7:03 PM UTC

jonathankoren wrote: post #141

Karunamon wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably a signal that the user base does not find those issues interesting. Snowden because it's nothing we don't already know, and refugees or gender politics because they always degenerate into political (i.e. not interesting) mud slinging matches. On a side note, if a community with the general high quality and good moderation of HN can't have a good discussion on those topics online, I'm inclined to believe that…

Of the article isn't interesting, the article wouldn't have been voted up. Marking down the comments indicates a desire by some to to enforce groupthink. Why? Because many people use votes to indicate agree-disagree instead of a quality metric.

You don't think agree/disagree votes apply to articles like they apply to comments?

And given what I've seen of the algorithm here, page positioning is a lot more complicated than vote count weighted by time.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#152

Post by Karunamon » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 7:05 PM UTC

guard-of-terra wrote: post #129

Karunamon wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably a signal that the user base does not find those issues interesting. Snowden because it's nothing we don't already know, and refugees or gender politics because they always degenerate into political (i.e. not interesting) mud slinging matches. On a side note, if a community with the general high quality and good moderation of HN can't have a good discussion on those topics online, I'm inclined to believe that…

Doesn't make the issues not relevant. Do you argue that we're incapable of dealing with these issues for all eternity? "Who voted this up?" is the community rift.

Relevance isn't the watchword for inclusion on HN, interestingness is. That's per the guidelines.

And you'll note I said "online".

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#153

Post by hellogoodbyeeee » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 7:06 PM UTC

I have found comment sections on news websites to be reliably awful. It seems every discussion thread deteriorates into an attack on the other side's politics even when the link to get there is non existent. ("Thanks Obama")

That being said, I love reading all the comments. It has been a guilty pleasure of mine for years. I often spend more time reading NPR's comment section than I do reading the actual content. I don't think this change will cause me to consume less NPR content, but I'll definitely spend less time on their website.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#154

Post by hsod » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 7:09 PM UTC

superuser2 wrote: post #96

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #38

Cons: Requiring comments via Facebook means loss of anonymity. Pros: Requiring comments via Facebook means loss of anonymity. I suppose it depends on what your priorities are. If you'd like the insightful input of someone who might be close to the source of the topic at hand, but maintains anonymity for safety or fear of repercussion, then the requirement to use Facebook could be quite damaging. On the other hand, if…

I wonder if there's a way to allocate names that are pseudonymous but not disposable. That is: you can have an alter ego (or 5) that aren't easily linked to your real identity, but new identities are hard enough to come by that getting banned isn't trivially bypassed by a new identity. This would be a major step for email/messaging spam too.

SomethingAwful handles this by charging for accounts, so if you get banned it costs 5 or 10 dollars to get a new identity.

Urbit handles this in a decentralized way by intentionally limiting the namespace, so that once it runs out you have to buy a name/address from someone who's selling.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#155

Post by Karunamon » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 7:11 PM UTC

mtberatwork wrote: post #131

Karunamon wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is strictly speaking, a generic and useless meta-complaint. Is the OP correct or are they not? If we want to have a discussion, let's start there.

> Is the OP correct or are they not? No. 1) Their left leaning narrative can't take facts at this point. What facts can't they take? What's the narrative that NPR is trying to weave? As others have already mentioned, their coverage is often not favorable to the left. NPR syndicates content from hundreds of independent public radio stations, including other public and for-profit sources such as American Public Media,…

As others have already mentioned, their coverage is often not favorable to the left.

And often is, up to and including misleading and misrepresenting facts. I gave two examples earlier, and was unable to find a retraction of either.

Is OP suggesting that NPR and the hundreds of other public radio stations suppress topics so as not to appear "left"? Also, see #1.

Mass uncoordinated action does not imply conspiracy.

Are they all conspirators in this narrative?

As I just said, "conspiracy" is a fundamental misunderstanding. But now that it's on the table, for things that make you go "hmm", look who the major media (news) companies make their political donations to. You'll find an interesting pattern. NPR excluded for obvious financial reasons, but still, there's a pattern.

This is just hyperbole.

I am not so sure. Comment sections serve an important purpose of allowing bullshit in the article to be called out, "trolling" and "bad actors" be damned. I also find it interesting how often those labels are trotted out dismissively against people who disagree with the point trying to be made, and how this "civility" canard is held up as an excuse to silence all discussion.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#156

Post by latj » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 7:18 PM UTC

showerst wrote: post #17

I see comment moderation as one of the 'unsolved problems' left in this generation of the web. When I worked at Foreign Policy we worked hard to integrate new commenting tools and encourage power users, but we were just buried by the threats, spam, and low-value noise. Web technology scales, journalism scales (poorly, but a relatively small publication can pull big traffic), but right now there's just no substitute f…

Yes, I think using FB login pretty much solves the problem as it is today. Take a look at civilbeat.com a regional news site by Pierre Omidyar (The Intercept). I'm fairly certain they only allowed comments via FB login for years. It meant a lot fewer comments than they would have gotten but they were all legit. Now it looks like they allow FB, Twitter, or local auth. But the comments are still mostly ok. Maybe they are looking for more activity by easing the requirements and believe they've built a culture of good commenting?

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#157

Post by formula1 » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 7:18 PM UTC

thaw13579 wrote: post #100

formula1 wrote: post #28

I think the fact this is a government service (or at least funded by gov) makes this choice far more interesting. It effectively sets a standard for services to avoid providing a open forum where the users can speak to one another, service providers and managing parties. Instead they are not bound to provide anything above and beyond their initial services. I dont think it is necessarilly wrong from them to do mass c…

NPR's mission statement doesn't include "a open forum where the users can speak to one another" though, and removing the comment section doesn't constitute censorship. The web and many social media services are available for people to publicly and freely speak their mind, unlike some other governments, where censorship does in fact exist. Ultimately, I think moves like this are good for promoting a more decentralized…

"Above and beyond" are the key words here. If this was a 100% private sector I would be fine with it because its about the companies choice. But the fact it is associated to the gov opens up many questions.

- how do gov programs want to accept feedback?

- does the government want open forums and discusion places?

- how much anonymity does the gov want to provide in such discussions?

- what types of contracts forve a company by law to abide by government principles of discussion?

We have laws of what you cant do. We also have laws such as "you can not deny a person water" in arizona [0]. Is the internet to be placed under similar laws or can I run a non-profit with my own agenda in mind with no interest in handling feedback from the taxpayers funding it?

[0] http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/asked-answered/201...

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#158

Post by millermp12 » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 7:22 PM UTC

Safe spaces come to NPR.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#159

Post by Esau » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 7:23 PM UTC

latj wrote: post #156

showerst wrote: post #17

I see comment moderation as one of the 'unsolved problems' left in this generation of the web. When I worked at Foreign Policy we worked hard to integrate new commenting tools and encourage power users, but we were just buried by the threats, spam, and low-value noise. Web technology scales, journalism scales (poorly, but a relatively small publication can pull big traffic), but right now there's just no substitute f…

Yes, I think using FB login pretty much solves the problem as it is today. Take a look at civilbeat.com a regional news site by Pierre Omidyar (The Intercept). I'm fairly certain they only allowed comments via FB login for years. It meant a lot fewer comments than they would have gotten but they were all legit. Now it looks like they allow FB, Twitter, or local auth. But the comments are still mostly ok. Maybe they a…

So the solution is a unethical, privacy invading, profile building company run by a guy who thinks his users are "dumb fucks"? No thank you.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#160

Post by tptacek » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 7:23 PM UTC

formula1 wrote: post #157

thaw13579 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NPR's mission statement doesn't include "a open forum where the users can speak to one another" though, and removing the comment section doesn't constitute censorship. The web and many social media services are available for people to publicly and freely speak their mind, unlike some other governments, where censorship does in fact exist. Ultimately, I think moves like this are good for promoting a more decentralized…

"Above and beyond" are the key words here. If this was a 100% private sector I would be fine with it because its about the companies choice. But the fact it is associated to the gov opens up many questions. - how do gov programs want to accept feedback? - does the government want open forums and discusion places? - how much anonymity does the gov want to provide in such discussions? - what types of contracts forve a…

What other government resources should have comment sections? Should IRS.GOV?